Stuart Shields

Stuart is interested in critical approaches to International Political Economy.  He completed his PhD on the transnational dimension of regime transformation in Eastern Central Europe at Aberystwyth's Department of International Politics, in February 2002, and joined Manchester in September 2003.  Stuart was founding secretary of the Critical Political Economy Research Network of the European Sociological Association until September 2007, and was the convenor of the BISA International Political Economy working group. Together with Werner Bonefeld, Hugo Radice, and Greig Charnock set up the CSE Trans-Pennine Working Group. Stuart has been a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Wroclaw, Poland, the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, and was a Non-Resident Senior Fellow in the Centre for Global Political Economy, at the Institute of International Relations in Prague. He serves on the editorial board of the journal New Perspectives, on the international advisory board of the Palgrave Studies in the Political Economy of Public Policy book series, and is one of the editors of the Lynne Rienner Advances in International Political Economy series.

Stuart's book The International Political Economy of Transition, was shortlisted for the 2013 BISA IPEG book prize, and his 2013 article about populism in Poland in Third World Quarterly was nominated for the biennial Aquila Polonica Prize, for the best English-language article published during the previous two years on any aspect of Polish studies.

My main research interests lie in International Political Economy and how the global economy is governed. I have spent the last decade focused on Eastern Europe and post-communist transition, in particular how neoliberalism was configured in Poland after 1989. In recent years I have explored some of the variety of responses to neoliberalism in Eastern Europe especially why resistance has often been populist, right wing and nationalist.

My current research is concerned with regional development banks and the intellectual and financial advice they provide to countries. Following on from my work on Poland, I am most interested in the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Eastern Europe's regional development bank.

Current Research Projects:

My current work is focused on three main projects:

• A political economy of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). This project explores the influence and impact of the EBRD in advising post-communist governments, and its more recent activities in Central Asia and the Middle East/North Africa.

• Populist resistance to neoliberalism in Poland. This project asseses the evidence that the populist government in Poland is a challenge to the European neoliberal political economy. The electoral success of PiS’s 500+ child benefit policy appears to indicate that state social policy intervention in the form of solidarism is a legitimate response to neoliberalism.

• Foundations and Frontiers in International Political Economy This is a British Academy/Leverhulme Foundation funded project that explores the construction of International Political Economy as an academic discipline. Alongside the more traditional academic outputs the project is developing a digital talking histories archive that we hope will provide insights into the foundation and early debates in International Political Economy.
  

Additional Information

PhD supervision:

I am interested in supervising PhD students in the broad areas of: International Political Economy, Eastern Europe, post-communist transitions, neoliberalism, globalisation, and global governance.

I'm particularly interested in PhDs that explore regional development banks, as well as the relationship between neoliberalism and populism.

If you'd like to discuss research proposals please get in touch by email. 

Current PhD students:

• Feiyang Xu Alibaba’s Ecosystem in South-East Asia: Chinese Capitalism in the World System (CSC funded).
  

• Julija Loginovic Individualisation Discourse in Global Neoliberal Governance and its Role in Subjectivity Production: the Case of the World Development Report (ESRC1+3).

Completed PhD students: 

• Dr Konstantinos Kanellopoulos (2022) Why does Greece fail? A comparative analysis of the economic crises of the 1930s and the 2010s.
• Dr Franco Galdini (2021) The Post-Soviet Space and Uzbekistan in the International Division of Labour: From Transition to Capital Accumulation (Manchester School of Social Science funded). Winner of the 2022 British International Studies Association’s Prize for Best PhD in International Studies.
  
• Dr. Muhammad Rakhmat (2018) Examining the implications of the Belt Road Initiative and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (Indonesian Department of Education funded).  Muhammad is a Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Indonesia.
• Dr Esra Nartok (2019) The relationship between religion and politics under neoliberalism in India and Turkey - a Gramscian perspective (Turkish Ministry of Education funded). Esra is a Lecturer at Karadeniz Technical University, Turkey.
• Dr. Ilias Alami (2018) Post-crisis capital account policies in emerging capitalisms: regaining policy space? A comparison between Brazil and South Africa (Manchester President’s Doctoral Scholarship). Ilias is Lecturer in International Development at University of Cambridge.
• Dr. Fadil Ersozer (2017) The limits of Europeanisation and liberal peace in Cyprus. Fadil is teaching at the University of Manchester.
• Dr Jon las Heras (2017) Room for Manoeuvre? Variegated Trade Union Strategies in the Spanish Automotive Industry (Manchester School of Social Science funded).  Jon is Lecturer in Industrial Economics, at the University of the Basque Country.
• Dr. Jackie Gomez-Mendez (2015) Argentina’s post democratic transition labour market reforms (University of Guadalajara, and Mexican Government funding).  Jackie teaches at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile.
• Dr Tomas Maltby (2014) The influence of new member states on EU foreign policy in the sphere of energy security (ESRC +3). Tom is currently Reader in International Politics at King’s College, London.
• Dr. Simon Orth (2012) Promoting Normative Power Europe: A Critical Assessment of the European Union’s Externalisation of Justice and Home Affairs (Manchester School of Social Science funding). Simon teaches history at Manchester Grammar School.
  
• Dr. Bilge Azgin (2012) Democratic transition and consolidation in Contemporary Turkey (Turkish Ministry of Education funded). Bilge is an Associate Professor at Near East University, Nicosia.
• Dr George Kyris (2011) Europeanisation, EU Enlargement and the Future of the Turkish-Cypriot Community’. George is Lecturer in European and International Politics at University of Birmingham.
• Dr Khaulath Mohammed (2009) Globalization and democratization:  the case of the Maldives. Dr Mohammed died in 2012.
• Dr Huw Macartney (2008) The Single Securities Market: A Transnational Financial Elite Project (ESRC 1+3). Huw is Senior Lecturer in Political Economy at the University of Birmingham.
• Dr Denis Murphy (2007) Between the State and the International: A Critical Realist analysis of US Decline.

Teaching:

In recent years my teaching has focused on the following areas

Undergraduate:

• POLI10502 The Politics of the Global Economy
  
• POLI30721 International Political Economy

Postgraduate:

• POLI70311 Critical Approaches to International Political Economy